1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data processing device for receiving, from an information processing apparatus, a registration request with which the registration of a notified party address is requested and for notifying the notified party address of information related to the data processing device.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a method for an information processing apparatus to receive information related to a data processing device from the data processing device, there have been proposed a polling method and an event method. According to the event method, when the data processing device satisfies a predetermined condition, the data processing device autonomously transmits information related to the data processing device to the information processing apparatus. Therefore, as compared with the polling method, there is an advantage in that the communication traffic between the information processing apparatus and the data processing device is small.
In recent years, a technology for a Web service has been advanced and an event method based on the Web service is has been conceived. FIG. 23 shows an example of the event method based on the Web service.
A SubScriber 2301 transmits a registration request to an Event Source 2302. When the Event Source 2302 receives the registration request, a Subscription 2303 is generated and stored. The Subscription 2303 includes a notified party address and a type of event desired to be notified. After that, when the predetermined event occurs, the Event Source 2302 transmits a message to notify the occurrence of the event to an Event Sink 2304. The SubScriber 2301 and the Event Sink 2304 may be physically the same terminal or physically different terminals.
For example, the information processing apparatus of an administrator corresponds to the Subscriber 2301 and the Event Sink 2304, and the data processing device corresponds to the Event Source 2302, thereby realizing the management of the data processing device. The management of the data processing device includes management of information such as a state of the data processing device, steps in a data process in the data processing device, activation of the data processing device, and shutdown of the data processing device.
In addition to the above, technologies with use of the event method are proposed (for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-203094 and Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-137585). According to these technologies as well, the information processing apparatus transmits the registration request of the notified party address to the data processing device, the data processing device stores the notified party address, and when a predetermined condition is satisfied, the notified party address is notified of information related to the data processing device.
However, in the case where the information processing apparatus transmits the registration request of the notified party address to the data processing device and the data processing device stores the notified party address, the following problem exists.
The data processing device has a limitation on a memory that can be utilized, and therefore there is a limitation on the number of the notified party addresses that can be stored. If the number of the information processing apparatuses that transmit the registration request to one data processing device is increased and when the number of such information processing apparatuses exceeds the number of the notified party addresses that can be stored, some notified party addresses cannot be registered in the data processing device.
While the notified party addresses registered in the data processing device are too many and if, for example, a notified party address that is for the administrator of the data processing device is not registered in the data processing device, the management of the data processing device cannot be appropriately performed.
Among the information processing apparatuses used by users, although the users do not need the information related to the data processing device, the registration request is automatically transmitted in some cases at the time of the activation of the information processing apparatus. In such a case, it is more highly possible that the information related to the data processing device is not notified to the notified party that needs the information.
In addition, as the number of the notified party addresses registered in the data processing device is too large, for example, the information processing apparatus different in groups on a network from the data processing device sometimes cannot perform the registration of the notified party address. Such information processing apparatus does not have an occasion to be notified of the information on the data processing device and further cannot receive various services available on the same network group. Although the information related to the data processing device is desired to be received, the information cannot be obtained. For that reason, it is impossible to know the shutdown or rebooting of the data processing device in some cases.